My vacation

I was on vacation for a week at Munnar in India. If you guys are looking for a spot to chill off in India I suggest you go there. There are tea plantations everywhere and the entire place is green. Its about 14 degrees now and goes to 0 and below in december. It would take about 2 - 6 days to see the surroundings based on how much time you have to spend. The tourism police seem to be doing a good job of keeping the plastic and crap out, but there is the odd junk lying here and there.

Sure. There are other things to do even after 2 days go by though. For example you can trek to the worlds tallest tea estate - kollukumalai and it would rob you of 4 and a half hours of the day just to climb down. You might end up spending a day just trekking up and down the hill

Last weekend I had been to Shimoga. Visited Gajanur dam , 16kms form Shimoga and Sakerapalle Elephant Park , 3 kms further down from Gajanur Dam . Both these places were so good that we cancelled our Jog plans for the next day and came back here once again.

The view form Gajanur dam is exotic ! I have been to many dams including the tungabhadra dam , but none seem to match this small, beautiful dam. There wasnt a single person there except the forest officials . And you feel as if you have walked into a painting . Hills covered with clouds , little islands in the water , birds just skimming the water surface and the endeless stretch of water on one side makes it , probably the best picnic spot I have ever been to .

3 kms further down is the Sakrepalle Elephant Park. There There are aroud 30 elephants that are brought form the surrounding fores everyday morning . They are then given a bath at the Gajanur dam , well fed and taken back to the forests again by 11 am . Hence one needs to go there early. You get to pet the elephants there, literally . You could touch them , pat them , pull their eras , play with their trunks , give them food and go on a ride if you want to. Eveery elephant here has a name and elephants here are by far the friendliest i have seen . [ June 13, 2008: Message edited by: shan Iyer ]